Arabic Mobile Marketing Services – IstiZada Internet Advertising

Mobile marketing in the Middle East is starting to see the initial stages of huge growth in the online advertising industry. With many Arabs having their first experience with the Internet on their smart phones mobile advertising will be one of the best ways to reach a wide Arab audience over the coming years. Mobile marketing can be very effective but it must be done correctly to see ROI from marketing efforts.

Why is now the time to start using Mobile Marketing in the Arab World?

Huge Market Growth

According to Google’s Our Mobile Planet Smart phone penetration in Saudi Arabia is 60% of the population. The United Arab Emirates has a smart phone penetration of 61%. 39% of those that own smart phones in the UAE have used them to make a purchase online. On average 70% of smart phone users in these countries said that they noticed ads at least some of the time they were using their phone. With such large adoption numbers that are growing everyday it is clear that Arabic mobile advertising is and will be a great source of business online. Despite this fact few companies are effectively marketing on mobile phones in the Middle East which means there are some large opportunities in this market just waiting to be taken advantage of.

Many Arabs are having and will have their first Internet experience on their cell phone

Yes, that’s correct Arabs who couldn’t afford a traditional PC or laptop computer are now having some of their first experiences with a smart phone. Why is this? Smart phones are becoming more and more affordable and in many ways are seen as a status symbol one can’t live without in the Arab world. Additionally many smart phone operating systems have settings that allow the phone to operate with a 100% Arabic user interface which makes these smart phones easier to use than computers that have some English features and some Arabic features. In fact one thing that is predicted to lower the entry point for Arabic speakers is the release of the Android 4.0 operating system which works flawlessly in Arabic. Having this open source platform available with Arabic now will greatly reduce the cost of smart phones in the Middle East. Android is expected to increase market share in the Middle East due to this change in the coming years. Currently in most Arabic speaking countries BlackBerry or Nokia has the dominate smart phone market share not iPhone or Android.

Young Brand Conscious Demographic

The median age in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia is right around 24-25 years old. Compare that to a median age of 37 in US or 40 in the UK and you can see that the population in most Arab countries is much younger and more brand conscious. American brand names like Nike, Pepsi, McDonalds, and many others are well known and carry a greater reputation in many ways than they do in their home country.

Size and Market Potential of the Arab World

The total population of the Arab world is around 340 million people currently. About a third of that number are currently active Internet users but with a young population and many older Arabs starting to use the Internet on their smart phones the number of active Internet users is expected to increase significantly in the next few years. With the Internet becoming easier to use for non english speakers there is also forecasted to be higher rates of Internet penetration in many of the Arab countries in the world. This is due in large part to new Internet standards like the language specific top level domain names that can be entered into a browser without knowing English. This and other technologies are making it easier for non-bilingual Arabs to connect with the Internet.

Lower Cost for Early Entrants

When the Pay Per Click advertising market was fairly new in the United States the cost per click was very low and it was easy to get prominent positioning in the SERPS. Today the situation is the same with Arabic mobile marketing. With so few advertisers targeting such a large market you can expect to get cheaper clicks and ideal positioning for your advertisements. Lower advertising costs and better positioning works together to bring you more ROI from mobile marketing in the Middle East.

Will your advertisements take advantage of this huge opportunity?

What sets IstiZada apart from the competition

Experience – You want to do marketing with a company that knows the online advertising world. IstiZada has experience doing online advertising in some of the most competitive markets around the world.

Data Driven – One of the biggest advantages of online advertising over traditional advertising is its measurable. To be successful with paid advertising online you have to be able to measure what is working and what isn’t working. IstiZada is a data and analytics driven company that uses our experience and analysis of your data to bring you the largest return on investment.

Customer Service – Many advertising firms in the Middle East are about making the most profit at all costs. IstiZada is on the other hand believes that if we provide our clients the best customer service and make sacrifices to keep our customers happy we will get more business in the long run. We are a customer centric company.

Project Management – Deadlines are important to our customers so they are important to us. Core to everything we do is solid project management that starts with setting expectations correctly from the beginning of any marketing campaign and ending with meeting or exceeding those expectations.

Challenges to doing Arabic smart phone marketing

High volumes of spam and poor quality advertising have turned many Arabic users of to clicking on paid ads online

Ads must be crafted carefully in Arabic in order to get Arabs’ attention.

With a high volume of Internet users that are relatively new to the Internet advertisements must be created in a way that only encourages clicks from the target audience and not curious new comers to the Internet.

Country specific regulations are common. It is important to know which markets allow or disallow certain types of ads.